Pumpkin slings and weird squash part Two!

The unknown squash has gotten rounder around the middle today (haha, just like me!) so now I'm even more puzzled about what it could be.


This pumpkin grew about two feet up on a section of my lattice fence. This will have to work for now until I can come up with a better way to support it!

Name that squash?

This first one is pretty easy...it's my first pumpkin ever! She's going strong so far. These are the "Baby Pam" variety, so they will probably get to be no more than 4-5 pounds. I think it's really wonderful to be watching my vegetables grow as I watch my belly grow too. :)

I'm certain that I did not knowingly plant these. I planted pumpkin seeds, zucchini seeds, and "autumn-winged gourd" seeds. This to me does not look like any of those! Any suggestions? Mismarked seeds? Rndom yellow or crook-necked squash seed mixed in? Either way, it looks so cool!

Hooray for the rain water barrel!

It's been really, really dry around here. You can see all the dead grass at my feet. We don't waste a single drop of water on the useless grass...all of the water we have goes to the veggies. We had a little bit of rain the other day, just enough to fill the barrel again about halfway.


We fill empty soda bottles collected from the nearby park (we're not soda drinkers ourselves) and put them onto water stakes that stick down into the ground by the plants' roots. This helps the water get where it really needs to be, and we lose less to evaporation in the heat. It's been just at least 90 or higher for the last 10 days or so, so the plants need every drop of water they can get.

Proud pumpkin mama!

I have three pumpkin plants, all this size! I'm so excited, I might actually get pumpkins this year. It's been so hot and dry that I've been really keeping an eye on them. Both rain water barrels are empty so I'm watering with our well water. Hope it rains soon!

Pumpkins!

I am proud to report that out of the few plants that made it from seedling to garden and thrived are these beautiful pumpkin plants. Off to the right are turnips, which I've never grown before but am hoping do well! It's been so hot here that none of the peas made it. I've got a tomato plant and a couple of pepper plants still hanging on in the back gardens. We'll see...it just hasn't been a good year for growing!

Peppers...

So far, the pepper plants look good. Last year, I lost most of my peppers to slugs or some other unknown bug. This year I've got 6 plants total- three bell and three carnival pepper. Hopefully I can keep the bugs off long enough to actually eat the veggies!

Peas= Total failure

I wish I had taken a picture of my failed sugar snap peas, but I was so discouraged I pulled them all out before I could. Last year, I had beautiful snap pea plants that produced absolutely wonderful peas. This year, I transplanted them and we promptly had a late frost. I didn't think this would be a problem, but two weeks later we had 90-degree weather. I think they just couldn't make it against the rapidly fluctuating temperatures. The leaves yellowed, dried up, and died. I watered them, I gave them compost and good soil to grow in, they got plenty of sunshine and still they died. I was really looking forward to sugar snap peas!! I planted another row directly outside last weekend, and they have sprouted. I just don't know if they'll have enough cool weather left to thrive in, as it's been almost 90 degrees again a few days this week. So much for Connecticut's temperate growing season!